


Lucky

by fallen_woman



Category: Mad Men
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-05
Updated: 2012-11-05
Packaged: 2017-11-18 01:01:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/555141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallen_woman/pseuds/fallen_woman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pete can't smoke. Lee Garner Jr. decides to teach him. Spoilers for S5, "The Other Woman."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lucky

It was the thirty-second floor of The Carlyle, two floors below Kennedy’s former duplex apartment, where Pete was on his knees. There was before him a white towel, a plump carafe of water, a torpedo of brandy, a crystal ashtray. Lee Garner Jr.’s belt, folded. Debbie Reynolds dripping from the phonograph: _I hear the cottonwoods whisperin’ above, “Tammy … Tammy … Tammy’s in love.”_

“Again,” Lee Garner Jr. said. “Didn’t your daddy ever teach you this?”

_The ole hooty-owl hooty-hoos to the dove, “Tammy … Tammy … Tammy’s in love.”_

Pete’s hands shook as he took the lighter, his ninth try. Burned the soft ring of finger on his left pointer. Wedding ring flash. Sweat so hard, he could smell the putty melting in his hair.

_Wish I knew if he knew what I’m dreamin’ of. Tammy … Tammy … Tammy’s in love._

Trudy was giftwrapped in bed, and Head of Haircuts Kenny was probably just getting to sleep, shoes on, Kinsey too. Pete could be there, too, he could be crawling into his own snowy bed, just as he finished this one cigarette, just as he closed his eyes and lips and willed his lungbeat to stop —

Pete choked.

“Tsk,” Lee Garner Jr. said, and the hairs on the Oriental carpet scratched Pete’s legs through his trousers as he tried to scuff away and then the itch went from his calves to his back as Lee Garner Jr. pinned him down.

First came the water: hit his face and chest, nostrils swimming while he thrashed. Then came the brandy, mingled between fingers prying his jaw open. Pete’s nose and mouth ran thick thick with snot and drool as his hands whimpered in the air, and he let all the coughing water leak out his eyes.

“Don’t want to hit ya, Petey,” Lee Garner Jr. said over him. “Roger could take a punch, you I’m not so sure.” He smeared the towel against Pete’s face, released Pete’s hands. “You’re like one of those baby birds. Never liked ‘em except on concrete.” 

“Please,” Pete said from the floor. Nipples puckered to his shirt. He stuffed dirty towel to his mouth and water-vomited. “I’ll… s—… anything.” Got to his knees and crawled to the bed-edge where Lee Garner Jr. was sitting. Reached for Lee Garner Jr.’s trouser clasp.

“Darlin.” Perched on the bed, Lee Garner Jr. rumble-laughed as he swiped thumb to the side of Pete’s face he had bruised earlier. “Knew I’d have you suck me off, sooner or later. Just thought to teach you something new, first.”

The scrape of Lee's fingernails against Pete's scalp was what finally drowned out the phonograph, but Pete mouthed the verse all the same, all the way down.

_Wish I knew if he knew what I’m dreamin’ of. Tammy… Tammy … Tammy’s in love._

——

In 1966, Joan Harris asks Pete, “Which one is he?”

Pete stops at the door and says, “He’s not bad.” Refuses to be cowed by the queenly disdain in Joan’s smoke-ring eyes. Women had it simpler, Pete reasons. They didn’t have to be likeable. Didn’t have to be brave. Either you wanted them, or you didn’t.


End file.
